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As Kate starts Rowan on solid foods one at a time, she’s working carefully with Ro’s pediatrician to expose her to a variety of tastes and textures, and to check for food intolerances and allergies. One of these is celiac disease or gluten-intolerance. Although it seems like every restaurant is on a gluten free binge, for people suffering with celiac disease, a gluten-free diet heals but for others it’s a lot of effort for no real benefit.

Celiac disease is a real medical problem and deserves an accurate diagnosis. Eating gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, barley and an ingredient in some drugs, triggers an inappropriate immune response in the small intestine causing inflammation and swelling that damages the lining of the small intestine and prevents absorption of nutrients. This can cause bloating, weight loss, diarrhea and, over time, deprivation of vital nutrients you need.

Estimates are that 1 in 100 to 1 in 140 people have celiac disease and around 2.5 million Americans are undiagnosed. Celiac disease does run in some families and is more common in Caucasians and women. Chronic inflammation from untreated celiac disease predisposes to other immune diseases and the earlier gluten-free diets are started, the fewer long-term problems are expected.

Many people think they have celiac disease or gluten intolerance because of vague GI complaints and they just want to feel better. But rather than go to the doctor and wait for test results, they will jump the gun and eliminate gluten from their diet as a test.

When they eliminate gluten from their diet and if they start to feel better, they diagnose themselves with celiac disease, even though it could just be coincidental that their dietary changes and their symptoms change around the same time. They may never know for sure if they really do have celiac disease if they go this route.

If you really do have celiac disease, but you’ve already eliminated gluten from your diet, tests results to confirm or deny you have celiac disease will not be accurate.

If you ditch gluten from your diet, lab test results may not reflect your condition – blood tests for celiac disease can only detect the disease when the trigger, which is gluten, is in your system.

If you’ve cut gluten from your diet, you may have to go back to a normal diet containing gluten to get an accurate diagnosis. You may be thinking you don’t need a formal diagnosis if eliminating gluten from your diet helped you feel better, but getting a formal diagnosis serves a bigger purpose.

Some other conditions have similar symptoms to celiac disease, such as Crohn’s disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, intestinal lymphoma, bacterial overgrowth and lactose intolerance. Skipping a formal, accurate diagnosis puts you at risk of treating a disease you don’t have or potentially missing a more serious health condition.

Additionally, if you do have celiac disease, you may need more than a gluten-free diet you design for yourself.

If and when you receive a formal celiac disease diagnosis, a nutritionist or dietitian should work with you to help steer clear of gluten and make sure your diet is providing you with all the nutrients your body needs.

Celiac disease is a life-long autoimmune disease and it doesn’t go away when you eliminate gluten from your diet; only the symptoms stop.

Since this condition is a chronic autoimmune disease, it can affect multiple parts of your body – patients need follow up care to ensure their celiac disease doesn’t lead to other serious illnesses.

I’m a big fan of patients owning their wellness and being actively partnered with a health care team to maintain health, treat diseases and injuries and team up to enable a long, active, happy life. Don’t go it alone.

Alfred Casale To Your Health
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web1_casale-5.jpg.optimal.jpgAlfred Casale To Your Health

By Alfred Casale

To Your Health

Dr. Alfred Casale is chairman of surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, co-director of the Cardiovascular Service Line for the Geisinger Health System and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. Readers may write to him via [email protected].